Today’s the final of the Gran Alternativa tournament, where Ultimo Guerrero & rookie Sanson taking on Caristico & rookie-ish Soberano to determine the 22th winner of this sometimes annual tournament. Ultimo Guerrero is already a three time winner, having won as a novato with Blue Panther in 1999, then as the veteran half of the team with Dragon Rojo in 2008 and Rey Escorpion in 2011. Caristico is a two time winner, winning as a novato in 2004 with Hijo del Santo (which rocketed him to top) and as a veteran with La Sombra in 2007 (which started his big push.)

Ultimo Guerrero & Sanson are the favorites. Soberano & Caristico have to overcome CMLL bookings patterns, which tend to spread the wins out. They’d also have to overcome the booking pattern of Caristico always losing the big match in this CMLL run, losing in the final of the incredible partners tournament last year and losing his title challenges in the last year. Their seems to be a definite ceiling on how far CMLL is willing to push Caristico this time around, and he may be bumping his head off it again today. The best hope is CMLL decides the story they’re telling with Niebla Roja & Ultimo Guerrero is more important and has Roja somehow coast UG the victory. The match has the makings of being a great match whatever way it ends; Ultimo Guerrero & Mistico are classic opponents, Sanson & Soberano just had that very strong match, and both teams compliment each other well. This is a situation where they’re going to be given a full opportunity to have an outstanding match.

There’s other promising matches on this show. Dragon Lee and Cavernario might steal their show in their lightning match. Both seem to have bigger singles matches coming up – Cavernario/Volador on Tuesday, possibly Dragon Lee/Negro Casas a week from Monday – but they’ve produced great matches against each other in the past. The semimain would be the best match on most shows: Angel de Oro, Niebla Roja & Valiente taking on Euforia, Gran Guerrero and Negro Casas.

The Vangellys/Pierroth feud, a real thing, continues in the third match. Kraneo & Rush team with Pierroth while Shocker & Terrible team with Vangellys. The second match has a bunch of people used to working a little higher, as Drone, Guerrero Maya & Stuka face Dragon Rojo, Misterioso and Polvora. The show opens with Virus & Raziel against Magia Blanca & Sangre Imperial, which at least might produce some GIFs. Raziel is currently 10-3 in regular Arena Mexico matches their year, an incredible record for an early match rudo (who traditionally lose about 2/3rds of their matches.) It’s probably not an accident, but it’s also something they’re not hyping.

This show should air on ClaroSports at 8:30pm. Hopefully it’ll go smoother this time. It’s also supposed to be on Facebook Live, but that got cut when the feed has issues last week. We do not know if CMLL will be posting it on YouTube.

ESTO talked to Sanson & Ultimo Guerrero about this final. Ultimo Guerrero states that he’s not going to take it easy on Soberano even though he’s Euforia’s son, because UG’s a professional and the goal is to win. UG feels his team is the favorite but doesn’t want to be over confident, and believed Volador & Flyer were going to be their opponents in the final. UG throws a hair vs mask challenge to Niebla Roja for the Anniversario. Sanson just says he wants revenge on Soberano for beating him in Copa Junior.

Tonight also has another Super Astro show in Arena Azteca Budokan with a cornucopia of indie guys. LA Park & Rey Escorpion versus La Mascara & Zorro is the main event. Flamita, Laredo Kid, Rey Fenix vs Jack Evans, Penta 0M, and Rey Horuz is probably the best match. Bobby Zavala has his first post-CMLL match in the undercard.

WWE announced the first four participants in it’s Mae Young Touranment. There was a CMLL name on the list, and it was surprising pick: Princesa Sugehit. Sugehit has been a solid luchadora in CMLL, as a both a ruda and a tecnica, for many years and would be a fine representative but she’s never been the most exciting luchadora and is older than any woman WWE would normally bring in. She also just won the Mexican National Women’s championship from Zeuxis a couple months ago from Zeuxis, which seemed like a sign Zexuis was the one losing since CMLL took their title off Mascara Dorada before he went into this tournament. Perhaps Sugehit’s assured CMLL she’s staying somehow.

The connection I missed and look obvious now is Princesa Sugehit is Dark Angel’s most famous opponent. Dark Angel lost her mask to Sugehit when she was starting out in Monterrey and the two were opponents for a number of years. Dark Angel’s farewell match was against Sugehit in Arena Mexico. Dark Angel now works as a producer for WWE and probably has a voice in these selections.

It’s hard to tell if CMLL knew. CMLL took the welterweight championship off Mascara Dorada when he was going to WWE for the Cruiserweight Tournament last year, but put the national women’s title on Sugehit about the same distance in advance. CMLL’s also been heating up the Zeuxis/Sugehit feud and it seems likely they’ll have a mask match sometime in the next three months, but WWE might throw a wrench in that. Sugehit figures to have a much harder path to getting signed full time by WWE than Dorada or Raul Mendoza for a variety of reasons, so maybe it’s not as much a concern to CMLL.

WWE only released the first four names. There’s scheduled to be 32, just like the Cruiserweight Classic. There were two Mexicans in the CWC, so it’s very possible someone else from Mexico could be invited. (There was also one Puerto Rician and one alternate from Puerto Rico, and Zeuxis specifically has a couple ways of being invited.)

Sugehit’s next CMLL match is scheduled to be Sunday in Arena Mexico. It’s unknown when WWE will announce the rest of the tournament.

The other issue here is the Wrestling Observer Newsletter previously reported Konnan (who manages LAX) was promised he and his team would never have to interact with the AAA wrestlers due to his bad relationship with the company. AAA probably isn’t all that thrilled with interacting with Konnan, and this is a big political mess for a match that will be getting only a small bit of attention going into that PPV. There’s other goals here – Impact might be looking to introduce AAA luchadors to it’s audience before including them on house shows later this year – but it’s a challenging way to accomplish them.

It may be unrelated, but t feels like this is heading to end of the formal The Crash/Impact relationship. The Crash hasn’t brought in any Impact wrestlers since March, after Bobby Lashley was pulled off the show late and The Crash ran an angle teasing the alliance would be over until/if Lashley came to Tijuana to defend against Garza. (Jeremy Borasch has been at the shows, but the TNA involvement has definitely been downplayed.) The Crash has been bringing in US indie names since that point and done just as well with them; you could argue that most of the people TNA could offer themselves would be a downgrade to that audience, or at least not really be worth any additional hassle or cost. What Impact’s parent company really wants is video content, so maybe this all changes whenever The Crash starts recording their own shows (or maybe even Impact/Anthem eventually produces them), but the relationship doesn’t seem to have grown the way it was expected when it was first announced.

Cavernario beat Volador quickly in straight falls to set up a title match next week. Volador still wants to do the hair match after, and Cavernario tried to break his arm for suggesting it.

Princesa Sugehit unmasked Zeuxis on a cradle to win their match.

Rey Bucanero has new non-TGR music, though the group still appears to be a thing.

This was Morphosis (ex-Histeria)’s first streamed match since losing his mask since back in December.

Thoughts:

cool but didn’t seem to fit

A skippable show, one I had trouble maintaining interest in for two hours. There’s nothing really worth going back for except a couple minutes of Panther & Hechicero on the mat. Everything else happens elsewhere, or better.

The main event and the lightning match looked like the best chances for a good match on paper, and both were cut much shorter than usual. The short main event worked for the story of Cavernario being a huge threat to Volador, but a sub five minute match is a flat way to end a show. The lightning match was all Fuego doing as much as he could before Misterioso hit one move to put him down.

Morphosis has obviously given thought to his unmasked look, but he may want to consider hair dye or something more. He looks older than his birth certificate, even though he’s moving fine. That semimain started off building to something with Blue Panther & Hechicero and just never seemed to get back to it, ending with a random double pin instead. It was unsatifying.

a very stilted highspot

I’m starting to believe CMLL’s actually going to do the Zeuxis/Sugehit mask match. Feuding every match is not anything new and isn’t definitive itself, but every match finish involving them is something CMLL only goes out of the way to do if they’re planning on a direction. It may still not be soon, neither woman is getting to make the challenge after the match, but it seems back on the schedule. The match had some problems and wasn’t as good as other versions of this same match has been, but the rivalry came across strong.

The second match had Sangre Azteca try to do mat wrestling spots with Oro that Oro was incapable of doing but Sangre Azteca would not stop trying. It was bad first fall, the match never recovered and the match went for far too long like usual. The minis didn’t do as much as they normally do in the opening match and it’s not like they normally do a lot.